1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a bulk delivery and dispensing system for liquids, such as syrup, utilized for making soft drinks. More specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus for measuring the volume of a liquid dispensed into a storage tank at a customer outlet.
2. Description of Prior Art
Heretofore measurement of the volume of delivered bulk liquids has generally been effected by volumetric measuring devices either on the delivery truck or in the storage tank at a customer outlet. These volumetric devices quite often become inaccurate over extended periods of use and require replacement or repair. These inaccuracies arise because these devices cannot distinguish the volumetric errors that occur in the liquids as a result of thermal expansion, air entrainment and sugar inversions. In view of such errors, these volumetric devices do not measure the correct volume of liquid delivered to the storage tank at the customer outlet.
Another approach to measuring the volume of a liquid dispensed into a storage tank is by the direct weight approach, wherein the storage tanks at each customer outlet contain a scale means for measuring the weight of material dispensed into the storage tank and converting the weight to a volumetric readout. A system of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,034,543 to DuBois issued in March of 1962. The DuBois system suffers, inter alia, from the disadvantage that each tank requires a costly scale, and in case of malfunction thereof, the storage tank is temporarily out of operation. Thus, the system at the customer outlet must be temporarily shut down for repairs.
Other approaches to measuring the volume of liquid dispensed into a storage tank by weighing the tank are illustrated in the U.S. Pat. Nos. to Alcott (2,330,857), Stone (3,785,412), and Hagans (2,746,258). Also, several approaches for lifting an object to be weighed by suitable jack means are illustrated by the U.S. Pat. Nos. to Witherell (344,762), McFarlane (932,050), Grime (2,373,469) and Miller (2,806,686). However, all of these approaches are highly inaccurate, unreliable, overly sophisticated and totally diverse from the portable weigh apparatus of the present invention.